AA Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the Divine and our own highest self.
These are excerpts from the book “The Pagan in Recovery” by Deirdre Anne Hebert that speak to me, with pages noted.
“So, to whom do these groups expect you to turn your will and your life over to? None other but the deity or higher power of your own choosing. The Twelve Step programs are not religious programs. Religion is the means whereby we express our spirituality, but our religion is not our spirituality. Our spirituality may be likened to our bodies, and our religion likened to our clothing.” (pg 32)
“Just as anyone can pick up a spell book and repeat the words, repeated words are not a spell; neither are they a prayer. Anyone could pick up a copy of the Big Book (as the text of Alcoholics Anonymous is known), turn to page 63, and read the prayer that appears there. Saying and doing are quite different things. I could, even as a Pagan, go to a Christian church, say the sinner’s prayer and go up to the altar at an altar call. This would not make me a Christian. Words are quite capable of being empty. Any of us can say or promise anything; it’s what we do afterwards that counts, or what we put behind those words as we say them.” (pgs 33-34)
“It is the physical body and the physical mind that are subject to addictions and mental illness and disease. The higher self is unaffected by such things. And so it makes sense, when embracing recovery, to contact not only deity, but to also seek to know the will of our true and higher self. Many of us have come to Earth with a mandate, a contract or a purpose, and knowing that purpose, and working toward it is a large portion of our recovery.” (pg 36)
“In recovery, we seek to know the plan or will of our Gods and Goddesses, and we seek also to know our own higher will. When we decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the Divine, and to our own higher will, we are recognizing that we have fallen astray of our own purpose; the path we are on is not the one we had contracted with for this particular lifetime. We are further recognizing that there is likely something far better available for us.” (pg 36)
“It’s possible that we are experiencing addiction, mental illness or that we love a particular individual with these characteristics because there is something in this particular situation that we are destined to learn in this lifetime. Getting in touch with our higher self and with our Gods and Goddesses may be our way of stating that we are now ready, having experienced the pain of that lesson, to experience a re-birth through the process of recovery…
… We acknowledge that there is much more than just ‘me’ in the equation, and that as far down this hole as we may have come, it’s going to take more than ‘me’ to work our way out.” (pg 37)
“Our Gods and Goddesses do not seek, when we ask them for help, to do the job for us. We don’t have a higher power that wants us weak, impotent and dependent; rather Deity delights in us when we succeed, having performed a task that at first blush seemed quite impossible.” (pg 38)
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